Spice up your life with ginger! 51 surprising ways to use it at home

Aromatic and spicy, ginger is as good for you as it tastes. From marinades to baked goods, sore muscles to motion sickness, this top-performing spice adds zest and flavor to recipes. Read on to find out more about this remarkable rhizome. You may just agree with us that ginger is the root to good food as well as good health! Here are 51 ways to use ginger.

Drake Leonards, executive chef of Lüke in New Orleans, combines 1 cup honey, 1 teaspoon ginger, a splash sambal (Indian hot sauce) and the juice from half a lime. The mixture is also a perfect dressing for a grilled corn salad.

6. Create a not-so-Sloppy Joe

Another Pulsinelli tip: add ginger to a meaty Sloppy Joe sauce for an unexpected pop.

Samantha Okazaki / TODAY

7. Add zing to classic crème brulée

Al Roker spikes his version of the French dessert with a hit of ginger.

Chef Wilson's spicy and sweet applesauce is easy to make: Toss peeled and diced Granny Smith apples with brown sugar and grated ginger. Refrigerate overnight, then cook over medium heat until the mixture is the consistency of applesauce.

9. Sass up sweet potatoes

Add it grated and juiced, says Pulsinelli, when making whipped sweet potato puree.

Here are just a couple ways our experts suggest to use ginger: Melissa Cookston mixes ginger ale with nectarines for a zesty citrus pork glaze. Leonards also glazes pork ribs and wild duck and with a mixture of 1 teaspoon minced or pickled ginger, 1 cup preserves (he loves figs or plum) and a splash of vinegar. 15. Braise with it "I add a piece of peeled ginger to the pan when braising a pork shoulder to give it some depth," says Wilson.

Drake Leonards, executive chef of Lüke in New Orleans, adds a kick to steamed mussels with coconut milk and a "sweat of ginger." (Cook ginger for a minute on medium heat in an olive-oil-coated pan with a dab of butter.)

TODAY contributor Joy Bauer shares her low-calorie Champagne Ginger Cocktail recipe: In a small dish or saucer, combine equal parts sugar and minced ginger. Run a lemon wedge along the rim of a Champagne flute, then dip it in the sugar-and-ginger mixture to rim the glass. Add 1 teaspoon crystallized ginger to the bottom of the Champagne flute, then pour in 5 ounces of Champagne. Enjoy!

"I love to muddle a few slices of ginger and cucumber in my Pimm's cup--fruit, cucumbers, mint and a fortifying shot of gin, with a splash of ginger ale," says Drake Leonards, Executive Chef of Lüke restaurant.

Health and beauty uses for ginger

Dr. Nesochi Okeke Igbokwe, internal medicine physician at New York University Langone Medical Center, recommends sipping ginger ale or ginger tea to reduce symptoms of nausea and motion sickness. It's the phenols in ginger that do the trick.

The anti-inflammatory properties of ginger help to support healthy mouth tissue, says Rene Ficek, Registered Dietitian and Lead Nutrition Expert of Seattle Sutton's Healthy Eating.

47. Help with arthritis inflammation

Drinking ginger tea or adding ground ginger to savory dishes promotes these anti-inflammatory properties that may also be beneficial to those with arthritis, according to Ficek.

48. Improve digestion

Ginger, in tea or candied, is shown to help with indigestion, says Ficek.

49. Relieve migraines

Ginger tea, or fresh or candied ginger is a powerful painkiller that can relieve migraines, according to Ficek.

50. Manage a cough

Ginger in any form can manage a chronic cough or bronchitis, according to Ashley Boynes-Shuck, Healthline.com reporter and author of "Sick Idiot."

51. Ease menstrual cramps

Cooking with ginger powder or eating slices of ginger with peanut butter on crackers may help with the pain and discomfort of menstrual cramps, according to Ashley Boynes-Shuck, Healthline.com reporter and author of "To Exist."